


Fragments of reality long gone

by BrittaR (Taaya)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, Video Game: Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-10-21 17:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20697374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taaya/pseuds/BrittaR
Summary: When traces of magic appear all over the muggle world, witches and wizards are recruited to uphold the Statute of Secrecy by sending these traces back where they came from. But when even people long dead appear all over the world, not everyone is sure that sending them back is the right course of action.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once again this is planned to become a slowburn Snape/Reader and once again I'm at the mercy of Snape as I have to hope his character will cooperate. And also once again I have to hope that I'll come up with ideas as I only have the basic setting yet. So ... no promises. But I felt there are way too few fics dealing with the possibilities provided by Wizards Unite.

Somehow you had known that something was about to happen.  You had felt it in your bones.  Ever since the battle of Hogwarts more than twenty years ago, the wizarding world had been in a sort of trance. It was peaceful, too peaceful. All of a sudden it had felt like one big  flowerpower sit-in. That there had been something like a civil war going on, that wizards had fought wizards, that the wizarding society had been rotten with prejudice and hatred had been forgotten. For twenty years everyone had acted as if nothing had ever happened, as if there was no society more happy, peaceful and tolerant as yours.

In a  way you  were glad that  most people just  tried to  forget about the  horrors that one year of death  eater reign had been . You  had all  tried to just move on, to  find a new  way of living and not  opening up old  wounds . It  had been easy this  way , but at the same time while you as a society  had tried to  suppress any  thought of how it  had been possible to  divide you that  badly ,  you  had actually worked on a society  where all of  those former prejudices were frowned upon . Your  collective shame and  silence about what  had happened had led to you  trying to  erase every aspect of  intolerance from your  everyday life. While it  had always felt a  little superficial ,  even artificial , you  actually had managed to build up  a society  where muggleborns were save from any  discrimination and  where no  wizard was  judged when he  fell in love with a  muggle .

Still,  now that you  had to think about it, it  had been quiet for  too long.  Something had been bound to  happen .

When you  walked through muggle London this morning to  get a new  powerbank for your smartphone , you  had seen it. A  portrait of  Bellatrix Lestrange was  hovering right in the middle of the street .

The blood froze in your veins. You distinctly remembered this woman, had fought her face to face for a moment during the battle in your sixth year. You had only been spared from her killing spree because another death eater had called for her to hurry to … you couldn’t remember. All you still knew was how frightened you had been. And now she was here. But then  again she wasn’t. She was dead and only her portrait hung in thin air in front of you. You didn’t even notice the man lurching around it, when you took out your wand and sent out a wordless spell. And then the portrait was gone again as if it had never even been here.

You looked around, but no muggle seemed to have seen you. Or maybe they hid, not trusting their own senses or even being afraid of you?

You couldn’t take any chances. Finding yourself a secluded backstreet, you hid behind garbage cans and apparated into the Ministry.

“Y/N”, the security man greeted you with a nod. “Hadn’t expected to see you in today. Since when are you working on Saturdays?” He was a nice boy and only just finished his trainee programme. Poor chap, having to spend the weekend guarding the Ministry. But ever since the final downfall of Voldemort the Ministry had taken precautions so that it could not be attacked so easily anymore. 24/7 security was just one part of the safety measures.

“I’m not.  Gotta report a magical incident in muggle London.”

“And another one”, he sighed. 

“Huh?” That didn’t sound good at all.

“You’re at least the seventh person coming through here with the same story. And I have no idea how many came through the visitor’s entrance or the fireplaces. Not to mention all the owls coming in today …”

Only now did you notice the sound of feathered wings in the air – and of guano dropping to the marble floor. Oh yes, you could understand why the Ministry itself only used flying memos. Which meant, those owls had to come from people outside the Ministry. Which in turn was a very bad sign.

“Right. Well. Let’s just hope we’re not doomed then. Anyway. Even if the world’s heading towards apocalypse, I should give them my report on yet another … don’t know … horseman of doom?” With that you smiled half-heartedly and went down the hall to the elevator.

Which floor was the right one, though? Should you go to the Department for Magical Accidents and Catastrophes? Or was this rather a case for the Law Enforcement?


	2. Chapter 2

You decided to go to Law Enforcement and basically ran into a huge crowd of witches and wizards yelling and screaming. Among them were Minister of Magic Granger and Harry Potter as Head of the Auror Department. Your heart sank. Not just because this meant that something huge was going on, but also because you were standing here, about to talk to two of the most known and most influential members of the wizarding world. And although you were a ministerial employee and had actually reached a high position in just the department you had always wanted to work in, you had never really had to speak up to any of those big fishes. 

Still you cleared your throat to make them notice you. “I just … ran into the portrait of Bellatrix Lestrange hanging in thin air in the muggle part of London. Nobody seemed to notice it or me throwing a curse onto it, but … that was pure luck.” 

They all turned to you, but they didn’t seem surprised at all. Actually they looked at you as if you had just stated something so obvious that it was rather boring and not alarming at all – at least no more than what they had already been talking about. 

“We’ve had a lot of things appearing. Always in muggle parts of the country”, a woman you didn’t know turned to you and spoke in a hushed voice while the others continued basically yelling at each other. Noticing her confidence and calmness you assumed that she was not only used to working with important people – but also used to crisis. “A portrait is the most harmless by now. We’ve had snitches, nifflers, kneazles, magical books and even prophecies appearing.” 

“Prophecies? But ... haven’t they all been destroyed in 1996?” 

“Well, not all of them, no. A few remained intact and some others have been made since then. But they’re all in place and none of them is missing. Which leads us to suspect that this … calamity is even worse than it seems.” 

“Why? So somebody must have made their own containers for prophecies. Can’t be that hard, can it?” While you understood the underlining problem of magical items and even creatures endangering the statute of secrecy, you didn’t see why it was a problem that whoever was behind it also used fake or real prophecies. 

“We don’t think they’re anyone else’s prophecies. We have reason to think that these are some of the records of prophecies that have been destroyed more than twenty years ago”, the woman told you. 

“Shit.” You covered your mouth, but too late. Cursing in front of somebody who was probably your superior. Great. 

“Indeed, though not my choice of words. And as there already have been living beings appearing, we cannot rule out the possibility that also humans long gone will reappear. Which might lead to a national catastrophe even worse than just a breach of the statute.” 

“People could see their dead loved ones. And maybe work on getting them back for good?” 

She blinked in surprise. “Actually we have not yet thought of that possibility. So far we had only thought of you-know …" She silently cleared her throat. “Voldemort appearing. That alone could by some be seen as a sign that a new uprise of dark forces is on the way. Death eaters could see that as … empowering.” She took off her glasses and cleaned them in what you thought was rather a way of gaining time or thinking. “We haven’t yet considered that anyone could try to get these objects and beings to remain here among us.” 

She left your side and rushed over to Mister Potter, whispering something in his ear. He in turn leaned in to the Minister, who paled when hearing whatever Potter had said to her. 

Granger magically enhanced the volume of her voice. “Order!”, she yelled and everyone around her grew quiet. She then lowered her wand and spoke in a less painful volume: “We haven’t thought of every possibility by now. Miss L/N has just brought up the question if somebody could want to actually retrieve any of the items or beings. While at the moment we have no record of anything dangerous beyond unveiling magic appearing in this world, we cannot rule out that items as powerful as the Elder Wand or even the Philosopher’s Stone could appear. Just like we can’t be sure that in time people long dead might be seen again. We have to find a way to not only be the first to find each object or being appearing, but to make sure nobody will ever use them.” 

While she was talking, a memo had made its way over to her and Granger held up a hand to signal you all to wait a moment. She read and then cursed loudly, something you had never heard any politician do. “As if this hadn’t been bad enough”, she said quietly, before speaking up again. “I have just been notified that this calamity is not just taking place in the United Kingdom. We have a worldwide ... epidemy of magic.” 


	3. Chapter 3

The next hours went by in a blur. When the big fish went into a briefing room, you just tagged along. Mostly, because nobody told you not to. Even those who still took notice of you, didn’t seem surprised or enraged by your attendance, so you assumed that you were actually wanted here. 

Still you kept quiet. You listened to them making plans and scrapping them again. At least until they settled on three courses of action: 

  1. The aurors were to seek for the cause behind this calamity. They were allowed to interrogate and use all means that were within the lines of human rights and both the wizarding and the muggle law. 
  2. There was a new elite force to be founded. They had to recruit talented witches and wizards to find the magic before not only the muggles, but also a possible enemy within their own lines, and get rid of it.
  3. There had to be a group of scientists finding out how to end the calamity for good if this was a natural phenomenon.

“But …”, you started, once those points were made clear and agreed on. You blushed. “Er, well, permission to speak?” 

Minister Granger nodded. “Granted.” 

“What if people start to appear? What if … well, what if they are actual, sentient beings, not just … I don’t know … traces? Shouldn’t we work on a way to get them to stay here? I mean, if those people died...” Oh, Merlin, what if actual living people were to appear as well? What if you ran into teenage you? And what if teenage you happened to stay here? Would that change your timeline? “Or … well, we should at least work on finding out if that were possible without changing our reality? I mean, … If that were to happen and if it were possible to get these people to stay here, some families could be reunited.” 

“No.” 

“No?” You stared at the Minister. 

“No. We are not, under any circumstance, to meddle with timelines and other people’s lives”, Granger stated. “There is no telling what could happen. And we have no right to drag dead people back into the living world. Everyone who read the Tales of Beedle the Bard should have learned from that. Those might be nothing more but fairy tales, but they are meant to learn rom them anyway.” Something mysterious glimmered in her eyes for a moment. 

“Hermione, I think, L/N has a point anyway. We may have scruples. But can the same be said for everybody? If there are still loyal Death Eaters out there and they have the chance of getting their people or even Voldemort back, they will not hesitate to search for a way. We should be prepared.” 

“But if they still exist, still wait for their time, they are only few. The chances that they have a wizard that powerful and creative among them that they’ll find a spell for this sort of thing is slim. It’s much more probable that they have their eyes and ears everywhere and therefore also among us. That they’ll wait for us to find a spell and then use it against us. The best course of action is to not give them the possibility to ever get Voldemort or any of the others back.” 

Potter looked taken aback a little. But Granger reached out over the table and took his hand. Her voice softened. “Harry, you know bringing people back is not the right way. I know you do.” 

With that, Potter nodded. 

And with their little private exchange both you and your suggestion were forgotten again. And you understood the reasoning behind it. You just hoped, that Granger was right. That dark wizards, if they were still around, weren’t able to use this to regain strength. 

But mostly you hoped, that no human or other sentient being would appear through whatever this magic was. This way no side would be tempted. 


	4. Chapter 4

The Statute of Secrecy Task Force was born. Its job was to find the magical appearances – now named foundables – before muggles would notice, and to fight whatever was holding them in this time and place, keeping your world a secret and buying the people trying to get behind this calamity time. If they were too slow and muggles in fact had seen them, Obliviators were always on call to help uphold the Statute as well. 

Soon posters appeared all over on the walls of the Ministry, asking anyone capable to join the Task Force. The people willing to join would be given a crash course on one of three types of magic useful for encountering the foundables. And you’d also get some money if you were willing to spend your time off hunting those appearances. 

Still you weren’t sure if you wanted to join. After seeing just the portrait of Lestrange, you had been panicking. So how would you fare seeing even worse things? Could you keep a calm head? Did you know enough spells? Enough that at least all you needed was the course they provided you with anyway? You weren’t sure. 

But you could always use the money and the experience. And not only that, you also wanted to help, to contribute to the society. And you were just a little too curious what else would appear in the muggle world. There were many things the wizarding world had invented, so many creatures you hadn’t ever seen yet. 

With a sigh you paced up and down the living room of your flat. 

“Oh, would you just sit down already?” The voice ringing through your thoughts belonged to your best friend Alicia. She was still wearing her Quidditch robes, as she had headed over to you right after training. She was the current seeker of the Tutshill Tornadoes and while her team was not exactly doing well at the moment, rumour had it she would be playing in the national team soon. You hoped so, although you had never been obsessed with Quidditch as badly as most witches and wizards. “I spend all day tracing moving things. I could do with a little … well less movement at the moment.” 

“I’m just trying to think”, you defended yourself. 

“I know you are.” Alicia caught you and softly pressed you down onto your sofa. “I just don’t know why. You’ve never been too bad with spells. And you always said you wanted to save some money to get out of this flat. This is your chance.” 

She was right. Your flat wasn’t bad exactly, though. You just wanted to get away from your neighbours and your landlord. While your neighbours were just a little too interested in you for your liking – given that they were muggles -, your landlord gave you the creeps. Calling him a dirty old man would have been an understatement. Thanks to living on the ground floor, you often found him trying to spy inside your flat. Not to mention that before you had exchanged the locks he would often let himself in to wait for you inside your living room. So saving money to buy a small house wasn’t the worst idea. 

“Will you join with me?”, you asked Alicia. Somehow you got nervous, thinking about having to do this all on your own. And Alicia had been one of the best in Defence Against the Dark Arts anyway. Having her on your side would make you feel safer. 

Alicia rubbed her head for a moment. You knew she didn’t need the money, except maybe as an insurance for when she got too old to play Quidditch. Being 36, she already was among the more seasoned players, but she could still keep up with those youngsters, so she probably wouldn’t have to worry about retirement just yet. Still, money didn’t hurt, did it? “Alright, fine. With just four hours of training each day, I’m mostly bored anyway.” 

And so it was decided. You were to join the Task Force. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'll probably be some time until I can post the next chapter. Not only am I planning to join Flufftober and then to write my next original novel during NaNoWriMo - I also have a little problem with my tendons at the moment and writing really hurts right now. So ... I'm planning to go on, but I can't promise if I find the time or the healthy hand until december.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joining the forces

“Do you have a smartphone?” The man in front of you was huge. Massive.  Not exactly overweight, just a mountain built of muscles.  He had the nose of a boxer, all flat and not exactly straight as if it had been broken at least once. But that made him only look more fear inducing. 

“Well ...yes?” 

“Was that a question? Don’t you know  for sure  if you own  one? Are you asking  _ me? _ ” 

“Gee, drop it, mate”, Alicia spoke up next to you. “We’re volunteers and you need us. Do you really want to scare us away? Yes, we both have a smartphone and we both know how to use that technology. This isn’t the dark ages anymore, right?”

You bit back the comment that by that definition the dark ages had only ended maybe ten years ago. Only slowly did muggle technology seep into wizard culture, even among the more conservative of pureblood families. 

“Get them out.” 

You both obeyed, pulling your phones out of your pockets. The intimidating man took out his wand and used a silent spell on both your phones.  Not only physically strong but also far from being a squib, this one. Great. Another reason to fear him. Thankfully he seemed to be at your side – although he showed no sign of appreciating your existence.  “Now you will find a new app. It shows a map of your surroundings and is able to show you the exact coordinates of  foundables within seconds of their appearance. We may not yet have found a way to stop them from appearing, but at least we can detect them. Whenever you have the time to patrol, open your map and log in. It can be that others appear at the spot of a sighting before you. If that is the case, you are to make sure no muggle will see the ones engaging the foundable. Now, any more questions?”

You had already been through the spells crash course, so  you just shook your head. What else was there to ask?

„Fine.  Then go out there and do your job“, that bull of a man roared and you  hurried out of the room, Alicia close behind you. But where you were part angry at that  idiot who surely needed to make you feel scared  to compensate for his own small ego, part  embarrassed that you hadn’t been able to stand up for yourself,  Alicia was brightly smiling.

„Isn’t he cute?“, she asked you and you rolled your eyes. She had always felt drawn to the more … primeval type .  Passionate and physically instead of what she called cerebral. You never had  much to talk about with her boyfriends, but you had to admit that they were very good at  helping building up bookshelves  or carrying heavy grocery bags. And Alicia had always been happy with them,  until it ended. So  as long as she was happy, you wouldn’t complain . As long as she didn’t  date THIS guy.

„Please don’t. I don’t want to have Mr. Drill Instructor tell me what to do whenever I visit  you.“ You could already see him making fun of you for not being able to talk to him like a normal adult being. If he turned out to be Alicia’s next  long-term boyfriend, that would cause a lot of awkward Christmas parties.

„Don’t worry, I’m currently seeing somebody anyway.  A beater of the Bangers.  I was just saying  that guy in there is  cute, nothing more.“

You rolled your eyes again, this time smiling.  You wouldn’t mock Alicia for fraternising with the enemy. A Banger player. Well, she had always been one for forbidden fruit.  „Anyway. Still have a few hours? Wanna grab a coffee to go and hunt some  foundables ?“ You waved with your phone and started the app. You registered with your social insurance number and looked down at the map. „See, only about three hundred meters from here. Let’s go.“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how fast I can update, but at least the NaNo is done now. (Still have about 20k words left to finish my novel, but that will have to wait until I feel up to continue writing a DYD story - extremely hard not to lose track, I can tell you!)  
Anyway, I'm free of immediate obligations, so maybe I can update a little more often than these last 3 months. We'll see.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all sorry for the always switching quotation marks. I haven't yet figured out why Word Online won't let me choose one way to do them and then sticks to it. 
> 
> And second ... since I first started writing this, the Potter Wiki updated added more information about the game. Back in the beginning it seemed that the whole thingies appearing would be called confoundables. But now the fragments are the foundables and the confoundables are what you have to cast a spell on. (I wasn't playing in English, so I could only use what I found online when it came to the actual terms used.)   
I edited it in the earlier chapters. Should be correct now.

You rushed around a corner and almost stumbled when you came to a halt. “We’re too late”, you whispered to Alicia, who almost crashed into you. 

In front of you there was a elderly woman, attacking a ...  niffler ? You blinked. No, she wasn’t aiming her hexes at the small animal, but at a man trying to keep the  niffler in place. Huh. That was interesting. 

“Y/N, remember? We’re supposed to make sure our colleague there isn’t seen by any muggles.” Alicia let the tip of her wand slip out of her sleeve, muttering protective spells.

“Right.” You joined her and together you created a protection so that nobody would see the woman use witchcraft. “Huh, maybe also …" You whispered a  Muffliato spell, so that no muggle would hear the sound of the fight either. Handy spell, you had to admit. According to the books it was an invention of the late Professor Snape. Pity he didn’t teach something like that in the three year he had been your teacher before the death eaters made him headmaster.

The woman in front of you hadn’t even noticed you yet. She was still trying to hex the guy who held the poor  niffler . She just sent another vicious spell his way, and this time she hit him hard. The moment he let go off the  niffler , the small animal grabbed some coins that lay around, and vanished, just like the man.

“That was no normal apparition”, you whispered to yourself. 

“No it was not.” The woman had noticed you at last. “That was … well, I call it  confoundable as it is always found in the vicinity and often interacting with the  foundable , but I’m not sure if that’s the official term.”

“A  confoundable ?” Had there been somebody around when you hexed away the portrait, too? You couldn’t really remember. There might have been a shadow … 

“My theory is that they keep these objects or animals in place. If you stun or otherwise  hex  them, it’s over. Every trace of them or the confoundable is gone.”

“So they’re the ones responsible?”, you asked. 

The woman shook her head. “No. Sometimes the confoundable is a chicken. Or a plant.  They’re not  always sentient beings. No metamorphmagi or animagi either, I used spells to force them to return to their human form and nothing happened. So I think that either those  confoundables aren’t even real as such, just another symptom of the magic that brought the  foundables here, or they have no control over their actual involvement. While a troll could be willingly malicious, just as much as a boggart, a simple glass couldn’t.”

You frowned and wondered if that was too easy an assumption. Maybe not every one of those  confoundables came to this world and time with the same intent. Maybe some came willingly and others were hexed to act as watchers over the  foundables ? Or maybe they were just here by coincidence? “You know a lot about those things already”, you simply stated, trying not to give away too much of your thoughts. 

“I’m among the scientists the ministry hired to invest this … calamity as they call it. I have to know a lot about it or I would be doing a very bad job”, she replied with an arched brow. “ Magaly Thundergoode .” 

“Huh?” You were stunned for a second, until you noticed that the woman had just introduced herself. “Oh. Sorry. Y/N L/N. And this is Alicia  Spoones . We’ve just been enrolled into the forces, though I was part of the first meeting back when this calamity started.” 

“ You were?  Interesting.“ Something gleamed in her eyes.  “ Did you notice anything odd back then?”

“Apart from a portrait floating in the air with no visible strings attached ? Nope. I’m not sure there was a  confoundable near, though. It all happened way too fast. I just hexed it out of a reflex, nothing more.” You didn’t want to tell her that it had been a moment of panic. Nobody had to know that at the age of 15 you had almost died at the hands of just the woman the portrait had shown. Well, Alicia knew, of course. But talking to a stranger about it? Hell, no!

Miss  Thundergoode nodded , but you couldn’t shake the feeling that she was disappointed by your answer.

„Well, I have to get going“, she simply stated after a moment of  uncomfortable silence. „Need to note down  my findings.“  She looked to  around and then  disapparated without another word.

„Phew.“ Alicia had kept silent until now , which was a miracle in itself.  „That woman was intense.“

You couldn’t help but agree. While she didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, something about Miss  Thundergoode had felt off. And you couldn’t even pinpoint in which way. Curiosity was normal for a scientist, wasn’t it? And she hadn’t been over the top curious anyway.  But still you couldn’t shake the feeling.

Taking a deep, calming breath you shrugged it off. You couldn’t do anything about that woman now, anyway. She was gone, Merlin knew where to. And what would you do if she were here? “Let’s just take down the spells and see, if there’s something else on the map. I’d like to not be alone when confronting our first  foundable ”, you said with a hint of resignation in your voice, before you began dissolving the protective spells.


	7. Chapter 7

It took a while until there was another  foundable on the map, close enough to get there in time.  But you and Alicia had fun, roaming the streets of Muggle London in search for  magic to appear. There were all those shops with strange clothes and  items you couldn’t pinpoint the use of.  What exactly was the use of small wooden boats contained in a bottle?  The boat didn’t even move and there were no magical waves around it. Now if someone would hex it to track a loved one that was a sailor, you could have understood.  While seeing the boat terrorised by heavy waves would have been  scary, it would still have been a good method to know that your lover‘s ship was still intact.  But this? Muggles were weird.

You spent almost an hour browsing shop windows before your smartphone buzzed inside your  pocket. Taking it out, you saw that a  foundable had appeared in a sideway only a few meters away.

„Time to get our first catch“, Alicia grinned and turned on her heels, speeding up.  You had forgotten how competitive she could get. Maybe losing the last  foundable to  Miss  Thundergoode had scratched her ego.

You sped along after her, but stopped in your tracks when you  saw a face you knew blinking at you. „Professor  Flitwick ?“

Before he could reply, a cock b reathed fired, trying to burn the poor man who tried to flee but for some reason couldn’t do more than run in circles. If it hadn’t been so disturbing, this would have been funny.

„Alright, I guess the cock is the  confoundable “, you told Alicia. „Let’s try to hex that beast to oblivion.“  In an afterthought you added: „And hope it’s not real, because I really don’t wanna kill anyone.“

Both of you tried to  stun that little beast, but it proved to be rather resilient. Not only was it too fast for most of your spells to hit, the first Stupor that didn’t miss also had little influence. The cock  only fell, stood up, blinked confused and then continued chasing Professor  Flitwick . So both Alicia and you varied spells, hoping that another hex or curse would finally knock out the  confoundable .

„Out of the wrist“,  Flitwick , if he was the real one, yelled. „You’re too stiff to hex spells  quickly.“ He hit his own butt in an attempt to  get rid of the flames that were the result of stopping to talk to you.

Still he was right.  Once you shook out and relaxed your wrist, you could cast your spells more quickly.

„Yes!“ Finally you had managed to  hit and the bird fell.

„Well done, girls. Five points to…“ With that both the cock and Professor  Flitwick disappeared in something like a grey cloud and were gone.

„Oh, just  a second longer and maybe w e c ould have changed the past  winners of the House Cup“, you whined playfully.

„Y/N, do you think that was real? That this was our Professor  Flitwick ?“  Alicia brought you back down to earth.

„Thanks, I had tried not to think about it too much“, you complained, then  shrugged. „I really don’t know. It can’t be the one from our time, though, can it? He looked so young. Like twenty years ago. “ But why hadn’t he been confused to see you all grown up, then?  Was this not him , just some kind of an image left behind by time and taken out of it? A magical copy of him? Was that even possible?

„What time is it?“, you asked Alicia.

„6:45 pm, why?“

You  bit your lip for a moment, before replying. „Because I might have an idea. If this was the real  Flitwick ,  from the past, transported to our time, it must have had some influence on present time  Flitwick . Maybe  he remembers meeting us, but I wouldn’t count on it. But if that were the real  Flitwick and he was taken out of time, then at least he must have been gone for a few minutes. Both back where he came from, and now, right? I mean, if he was taken, he could not  have existed in Hogwarts this very moment, before the timeline was reestablished. So maybe somebody noticed him gone?“

„Ah. And it’s dinner time back at Hogwarts, so he was surrounded by students and teachers alike. Good time for somebody to notice something.“

You nodded. That had been your thoughts exactly.  Though you weren’t too sure if this magic really left those kind of traces. What if  timelines simply healed themselves and nobody noticed that there had been a change? But in that case you should have forgotten, too, right? But then there had been a myth that time-turners had worked similarly. That people around you didn’t  really notice the changes, but you knew if you did something. You knew how the timeline had been before and how you had changed them, like you were in the eye of the storm. What if that applied to  the people encountering  foundables as well? „At least it’s worth a try“, you decided.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extremely short one, sorry about that. But I just don't like chapters that feature independend scenes.

You had first reported back to the Ministry. They had to know that now people appeared as well.  What had been just a theoretical possibility had turned out to come true.  Thankfully this time you didn’t stay long enough to hear the uproar this new development caused , didn’t attend the meeting they immediately started organizing . This was the Ministry’s greatest fear, that much you knew. But you didn’t want to hear them talking about what this could cause the few remaining death eaters to do.  Not again.  You could understand that they worried about losing what peace you had achieved in the last twenty years. But what bothered you more was how people would react to seeing lost loved ones. And worse: How the people trapped in the effects of the calamity might feel.

When you went back  to your flat , you and Alicia sat together over a piece of paper. While parchment might still be the go-to material in school, you, like most younger wizards and witches, had learned to love simple ruled paper and pens. They were  just so much more useful th a n always dragging around huge rolls, ink bottles and quills. A simple notebook and a pencil were  simply the more pragmatic things to use.

„You sure we should write him?“,  Alicia asked.

„We can’t just waltz into Hogwarts. Surely they have some security measures after what happened twenty years  ago.“ You couldn’t imagine that they hadn’t blocked every single entrance with spells. Maybe they were kind enough to let students use the secret passageways, if the kids managed to find any . Because what was school if you had no secrets to explore? It was rather a tradition, wasn’t it? And as the teachers mostly went there themselves, they sure knew where to find the passageways, so they could have blocked them long for everybody, if they really wanted students not to use them. B ut they sure had to have used spells against adult intruders , more than just what they had back in your days . „And how should a spell or statue know that we’re no enemies?“ 

„But we can’t tell him in a letter that we’ve seen his past self, right?“

„We could.“ You giggled, imagining Flitwick’s face.  Then you sobered again, imagining how he would be feeling if you told him.  „But I’m not sure that’ll get us inside. No, we’d better just tell him we’re onto this calamity and have a few questions. After all he was our charms teacher. And none of our defence teachers are both alive and in their right mind, so he’s the logical choice to ask, isn’t he?“

And so the two of you wrote to Hogwarts for the first time in almost twenty years, feeling a bit ashamed that you had never taken the time to reach out to the people who made you what and who you were today.


	9. Chapter 9

Two days later you walked down the long road from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. Somehow it still felt like you were children, coming back from another outing to the village. Only this time you didn’t carry loads of sweets, just a small box of chocolates as a token of appreciation that Flitwick was willing to see the two of you. 

“I would have imagined it to look smaller now”, you said, looking up at the castle in front of you. “And maybe less intimidating.”

“But  also less beautiful and magical.” Alicia smiled up at the castle. She had always been the more adventurous one. You could still remember her falling in love with the everchanging staircases at your very first day in school. Everybody else had been scared, but she had been running up and down the stairs, had even looked down into the abyss – at least you had called it  that - when they were in the process of changing directions. Almost got her fingers crushed when the new stairwell platform came close faster than she had anticipated. She had always loved this castle. 

“And yet it doesn’t.” 

“No. It’s like we’ve never been gone.”

You smiled at her. “Well, it’s a little different. But not as much as I would’ve thought.” And it wasn’t. Hogwarts looked a little different than before the battle, sure. Not every room had been rebuilt just like it had looked before. But you had finished your education here in the year after the reconstruction, so you had seen Hogwarts in its new state. Now there were only a few things new. The greenkeeper’s hut had been turned into a real stone cottage. Not too big, but big enough not to look like a garden shed anymore. You wondered what Hagrid said to that. He had always seemed content in the small structure although you wondered if he even had running water. But maybe he was happy to have a little more comfort. 

There also had been a few new gargoyles watching over the towers. You assumed they were guardians that could attack enemies if needed. 

But apart from that you couldn’t spot any major differences. Which both excited and irritated you. You wanted it to feel different, so that you could get used to not being the student anymore. To make it not feel like home. Leaving would be so much easier later on, if you just felt like a visitor, if this place had become foreign and strange to you.

“Good to be back”, Alicia grinned. She obviously didn’t mind feeling like a child again. “Wanna race me to the gate?” 

Damn athletes. You grinned, if a bit forced. “Not unless hell just froze over. Don’t  wanna meet my teachers stinking and sweaty. Come on, we’ll be there in a few minutes.” And Alicia looked as if that had just been the answer she had expected. She knew you only too well.

A quarter of an hour later you smiled at Mr. Filch, who came to the gates to let you in. You would have never imagined being happy to see his bitter face ever again.  Actually you have always wondered why he wasn’t sent to jail after willingly helping Umbridge. Or threatening children with torture. Surely that must be crimes, even in the still rather conservative – meaning stuck in the Dark Ages – Wizarding World. And still right now you were looking at a part of your childhood. The hard feelings were gone, or at least lost their bite. 

“Mr. Filch, so happy to see you again”, you greeted him with an honest smile. He hated children, sure. But you weren’t a child anymore. Hell, you were almost old enough to have an own child about to graduate from here – a very strange thought. But that meant now you met on equal grounds. You had no reason to fear him anymore and he had at least fewer reasons to hate you.

Still he only grumbled something about being used as a handmaid and made a gesture that you should follow him.  So with a shrug towards Alicia you began to move again.

You passed students almost every few meters, as it was a bright and warm day for early October. Oh, you remembered how it felt like, spending a weekend in Hogwarts. Between homework and a lot of free time you didn’t know how to use, really. Nothing on the grounds to get a change of scenery, no movie theatre, no pub, no nothing. But a lot of other kids, to spend time with.  Of course you’d go roaming the castle, looking for a few secrets you might have not found out about in the years you’ve already been going here. Today, though, you were the highlight of those kids’ day. Some of them seemed to follow you to see why on earth Filch brought adults to the castle. Could you be in trouble? Could even adults still get detention?

The caretaker brought you into the Great Hall, where Flitwick was already waiting for you, along with a few other from the staff. 

“Professor, er, Professors, thank you for meeting us”, you began, while Alicia made the rounds, hugging everybody who wasn’t able to flee or stare her down. She really did like the castle and everything – and everyone – inside.

“Miss L/N, it’s been a while”, Flitwick smiled. The small man really looked older. Older than you last seen him and even older than whatever or whoever you had seen in the streets of London. Thankfully he also looked happy to see you, the smile reaching his eyes easily. “It’s not often former students come to visit us.”

You blushed, feeling a little ashamed. “Sorry ‘bout that.” You wondered if you should tell him, tell them that it would be easier to come here, if there would be summer festivals or other days on which visitors were openly allowed. Sure, there was Quidditch, but it was hard to be allowed to come to the games. There were only so many seats and without a child of your own in one of the quidditch teams, it was hard to get your hands on the rare tickets. And what if you weren’t interested in Quidditch? Then there was nothing you could do here. But right now this would have sounded like a lame excuse or even like blaming Hogwarts and its staff. It wasn’t fair. “I …” You didn’t know what to say.

“Let’s get to the point. We’re far away from the calamity, but we’re not blind to it. You need our help to prevent the exposure of our world to the muggles. What can we do?” This time it had been Professor McGonagall who had spoken. And while her voice was a little harsher, you were glad she changed the topic.

“This won’t be easy”, Alicia murmured. 

You glanced at her pointedly.  _ Very helpful.  _ Why was it that she was the brave one, but whenever there was something awkward to explain, it was your job? It wasn’t that you were the brain of your little duo. She was just as smart as you were. And more sociable. And still here you were, explaining: “We ...saw Professor Flitwick a few days ago. In the streets of London, chased by a fire breathing chicken. He was … at least 20 years younger than today, maybe more.” You turned to Flitwick. “You were the first human being to appear as part of the calamity. That’s why we don’t know if it was really you, a past you, or ... something else. We thought that if this was your past, if there is something really messing with time, perhaps something was noticed here, too. If a past you was trapped in our time, …"

“Then I could remember or maybe for a moment I wasn’t existent anymore and others would remember? But time has a way of healing itself.” Flitwick looked up at you and smiled sadly. “I don’t remember anything. I wish I could be more helpful.”

You nodded slowly, a little disappointed. “But … let’s say it wasn’t you  you . I mean, not the Professor Flitwick standing right here or any of your former moments in  life. Could somebody copy you without impersonating you? I mean, not an impostor using  polyjuice potion, but … something else?” Maybe this way you could rule out at least one possibility. 

But the look on Flitwick’s face didn’t spark any hope. He looked lost in thought for a moment. “It’s a theoretical possibility, I assume. Have you ever been to the headmaster’s office – or right now the headmistresses’?”

You shook your head. It wasn’t as if you had never played a prank and got reprimanded, but you had never been in that much trouble that you had had to see the headmaster, not even under the death eater regime. 

“I have”, Alicia chimed in.  Of course she had. “Remember how I crashed into  Dumbledore’s office window because of a bludger?”, she asks, turning to you. 

You nodded. She had spent the night in the hospital wing, because it took so long to get all those small pieces of glass out of her body. She still had a few fine scars standing out from her brown skin because of it.

“I assume you’re talking about the portraits?”, she asked Flitwick now, before turning to you again. “Dumbledore was having an almost heated conversation with one of them when I fell on his floor.”

“Exactly. While the portraits are not completely made of the essence of what makes a person, whatever that might be, they hold a part of the person’s knowledge and personality.  So a partial copy is possible.” A little quieter he added: “And maybe a complete one, as well? Now that would be an innovation of magic. But … magical cloning … no. Who’d be mad enough to try?”

Yes, who would be? That was the question behind the calamity after all. Who was responsible and what was their  goal. Was it a natural phenomenon, or was somebody meddling with … with what? People? The Statute of Secrecy? Time?

You sighed heavily. “ So we’re back to the beginning, knowing nothing. Only, that we can’t rule anything out. That’s damn scary.” 

“It is …" Professor Flitwick bounced on his toes for a moment, then he made a small noise of … having an idea? “I’ll think of something to verify this …. thing’s identity. If it is me or a copy of me, it has to know certain … things that are not common knowledge. I’ll make you a list of everything I can think of to identify me and you’ll get it no later as Monday.”

And with that your former teachers invited you to a late lunch, though you learned early on that they actually only wanted to interrogate you on what you had made of yourselves. Still it was an enjoyable afternoon if you ignored that you were still puzzled by what was happening to the Wizarding World.


	10. Chapter 10

„What do we know by now?“, Minister Granger had asked you to join today’s meeting. Although you had not been alone when encountering Calamity-Flitwick as you sometimes called him now, as well as when you had met the real one, Alicia was no employee of the Ministry – apart from the Task Force. She couldn’t be called in on a whim and she had Quidditch training at the moment anyway. You thought it a lame excuse for leaving you to explain what you had learned, but in a  way you understood her. Her real job came first – and maybe you were a little better with words than she was.

And now was the time to prove it, as Minister Granger was currently looking at you, waiting for you to answer her question. 

„We don’t really know  anything.“ You swallowed hard when all eyes turned to you. “So far we can’t rule out any of the possibilities. A copy of a living person? Someone dragged through space and time? An impostor? But with the help of Professor Flitwick we have a plan of at least gaining further intelligence. I’ll hand out a list he sent us with questions and answers only he himself can know. If we can communicate with the foundable that looks like him, and he doesn’t know how to answer, we know it’s an impostor. If he can answer correctly, we can rule out impostors and know we face either a copy of a person, or the real thing.”

You pulled the list  Flitwick gave you out of your bag and magically co pied it until everybody around the table had a sheet of paper in front of them.  „I suggest you hand this out to everyone in the Force and whoever gets the chance to  ask  the  foundable of  Flitwick any of these questions to  identify him, calls in  as soon as possible to share the results. Until then  I have no other idea what we could do to learn more about this new occurrence.“

You noticed Miss  Thundergoode sitting at the table as well, taking notes at an impressive speed. You wondered what she might be writing about. Would she have other ideas? Never would your short speech add up to such an amount of written text.

“Have there been sightings of any other human foundables?”, Granger asked. Not you personally, but everyone in the room.

All around  you heads were shaking.

“I ran into another Flitwick this morning”, one voice spoke up, though. You turned to see a  middle aged man with some scars in his face, but you had never seen him before. If he was here, it meant he was either important or stumbled into something big by accident, just like you had. “But he was gone, before I could even try to free him.”

“Does that mean, that  foundables disappear without us interfering?”, you asked, before you had even noticed you opened your mouth at all. 

The man shrugged. “That one did. But I can’t tell if that’s normal at all and, if so, how long foundables stay in our world or at one place.”

“It also seems to mean, that freeing one  foundable and sending it back does not equal it not becoming a  foundable again”, Granger mused. 

“Unless they are copies and we’re only facing another copy each time”, you said with a shrug. And  so it was back to you not really knowing anything. More and more questions popped up while you all had tried to answer the first ones.

With a sigh the minister nodded. “Keep me up to date whenever anything new is found out, no matter how small. Spread the list that L/N gave us among everyone in the Task Force, but only them. We don’t know if there is a person behind it, that could use this list of questions and answers to fool us. If anyone gets a chance to ask this  foundable of Professor Flitwick a question, they are to report back here immediately, no matter what time of day. If there is yet another person turned  foundable encountered, the one encountering them has to report back here immediately as well. From this very moment on, this calamity is our top priority. Now it might not only endanger the secrecy in which we built our society, it might very well endanger time itself and therefore possibly the whole planet and every being on it, muggle or wizard.”

With that the meeting was over and all of you hurried outside to get back on the street, eager to find something new as soon as possible – hoping to dissolve the fear that more than just the Statute of Secrecy was at stake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taking so long. I work on original novels on week days and planned to work on fanfiction on the weekends, but somehow on weekends I only have energy for a few words per day. While I have at least some clue where I'm going with this now, it's hard to really get it down when all I really wanna do is sleep.   
I'll try my best not to have you waiting too long, but I can't promise anything.


End file.
